


you take the things you love (and tear them apart)

by Ro29



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: (Hi Mr. and Mrs. Wayne), Cuddles, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I was very vague though on most of these, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Beta Read, Pining, Sad gays, except for the, kind of, so much gay, times 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29
Summary: Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, the modern-day tragedy.
Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 14
Kudos: 67





	you take the things you love (and tear them apart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jerseydevious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Hummingbirds Under His Skin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22041871) by [jerseydevious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious). 



> I blame this thing completely on Jersey and all of you should go read Hummingbirds Under His Skin because it gave me Emotions.
> 
> Also guys, guys there's so much gay in here, this baby fits so much pining and dumbass gays its ridiculous.

When Bruce is 12 he is a whirlwind of horrible decisions and grief mixed with loneliness and anger.

Bruce Wayne at 12 is in a private school that’s constricting in it’s normality and devastating in it’s apathy.

Bruce Wayne at 12 is consumed by the burning of his chest and the ache in his soul, and he is angry at the world and desperate to fill a void he can’t identify but eats away at him.

It is not, per say, a pretty combination.

It leads to fights that have Alfred’s eyes digging into him in a way that makes Bruce want to scream.

He hates the feeling that Alfred’s disappointed in him, but it seems to be the most common emotion he brings out in the older man. That and sadness.

He hates it when Alfred’s sad.

He keeps his head down. He keeps to himself and makes up one lie or another to tell Alfred, to reassure him that he’s making friends, that he’s doing okay. He gets okay grades and he tries to stop getting into so many fights, even when the injustice of some things leave him snarling, teeth gnashing and fists clenched so tightly his nails draw blood.

His disciplinary referrals and meetings with the principal go down, Alfred looks a little less stressed and a little less weary, and Bruce is so unbearably lonely that it _burns_.

He reads whatever he can get his hands on that makes him even the slightest bit interested and he devours knowledge in place of companionship and tries to prepare for any and every situation he might find himself in, because being over prepared will always, _always_ be better than being caught unawares.

(And maybe, _maybe_ , if he had known more about the world when he was little, he might’ve been able to do _something_.)

And he sits alone at lunch, despite the fortune he is still heir to, the fortune he’s inherited far too early and far too young and at far too high of a price. Because no amount of money seems to excuse the fact that he is sad and angry and still grieving 4 years after the fact, when everyone is telling him to move on.

He’s stopped explaining that he’s trying to, because no one listens to him, no one listens to how hard it is when he still sometimes wakes up with his parents names on his lips and bile rising in his throat and the image of _bloodbloodblood, they’re so still, why are they so still, move, pleasepleaseplease_ seared into his brain.

He is 12-turning-13 when he first notices Harvey Dent.

He is 12-turning-13 and lonely and coming out of a downward spiral that blinded him from ever really caring about the new boy at school, and it’s then that he notices that Harvey Dent is smart and alive in a way that makes Bruce want to know him, want to be friends with him just to get to see the liveliness, that _happiness_ up close.

Harvey Dent at 13 is a ball of contradictions and friendliness that sets Bruce’s teeth on edge and soothes something in his heart even as he wishes, selfishly, that he could get more of it.

There is a year, spent with Bruce cautious and defensive and Harvey curious and resilient. And despite being a scholarship kid in a sea full of the worst snobs in Gotham, Harvey doesn’t let that deter him from walking up to Bruce Wayne during lunch one day and sitting down.

They are 13 and sitting in a secluded hallway because Bruce eats alone and he got tired of eating at a table by himself and being surrounded by hundreds of kids socializing with each other.

They are 13 and Harvey Dent sits down next to him in an empty hallway, smiles at him and takes Bruce’s heart for his own without ever even realizing it.

* * *

Bruce is 13-going-on-14 and Harvey is the only real friend he has. And they are bumbling through life, both of them just as lost as the other and Bruce quickly grows to hate Mr. Dent with a passion everytime Harvey comes back from visits home looking crushed and small and not nearly as comfortable in his skin as he was before.

_(There is a searing in his heart and he knows that no matter how good the logic is, no matter how close to the truth his thoughts are, none of that will ever help Harvey, not when his best and only friend still tries to lie about it to him._

_Sometimes the way Harvey smiles is a little less infectious and a little more heartbreaking.)_

Life passes as it always does and college hits the both of them like a train for very different reasons, Harvey out from under his father's hand blossoms in a way that Bruce doesn’t think anything else could match.

It’s not until they hit college, both of them feeling so much older than they are, that Bruce realizes what the spark Harvey has always ignited beneath his skin is. It’s there when he sees Harvey, who is no longer 14 and lanky but filled out and charming and _gorgeous_ in the way that Bruce knows other’s appreciate far more than they do Harvey’s brain or his kindness or his _enthusiasm_ and—it’s then that he knows how fucked he is.

Because his best friend is amazing in every way, kind and so many other meaningless words that could never adequately explain the electricity in Bruce’s chest when they touch or make eye contact or laugh together.

And he never meant to but Bruce Wayne, at some point along the line, fell in love with Harvey Dent.

And Bruce is terrified because he can’t ruin this, he _needs_ Harvey in a way he so rarely needs anything and if he loses him, Bruce might never come back from it the way he was before.

So he resolves to ignore it, to keep everything he has at the moment just the way it is, keep it safe, and not wish for more.

He glides through the days just like before, except now, when he catches himself staring at Harvey for too long or too weirdly, he clenches his hands into fists, hard enough that his nails slip into the skin, tiny beads of blood welling up after long enough. He has matching crescent shaped cuts on both hands and a burning in his chest and a buzzing under his skin, and the electricity of anger and grief and injustice thrumming in his veins.

There is something that might be heartbreak clogging his throat, when he’s sitting next to Harvey and Harvey is looking at him like he is the moon, and Bruce wants nothing more than to just try, to throw everything into this. The highest stakes bet he has ever made.

He waits, tries to collect more information before ruining his one and only friendship.

Because Bruce has seen what becomes of those who wear their love too openly. The world is not kind to those like Bruce. And he can survive many things, could maybe even survive losing Harvey, but he doesn’t think he would ever survive the disgust Harvey might show him, the disappointment he might find on Alfred’s face.

(Alfred never needs to know, not about this. Bruce refuses to risk it, can’t stand the thought of what Alfred’s reaction might be, he’s survived a lot, but Bruce doesn’t think that his heart would be able to take that.)

It feels a little bit like limbo, the want that burns under his skin, the desire to just be near Harvey and to soak up all of his attention, all of his shining brilliance. And Bruce has never claimed to be a poet, never been good at words in the way that matters, not when they matter. But if he could he would write novels for Harvey—poems about how loving Harvey feels like loving something sacred, something special, how every minute he spends with Harvey he feels like _he’s_ something special—he would write until he couldn’t anymore.

It’s a talent of Harvey’s, to make Bruce feel like maybe, just this once, he’s something other than a little boy whose parents died too soon, small and weak and nothing more than money to most people. Harvey makes Bruce feel like maybe, just maybe, it’s worth it to love something as bright as Harvey, no matter the pain it brings.

One night, in a Princeton dorm room, Harvey crumbles under the pressure of too many things on his shoulders, too many expectations and too many eyes on him and too many cruel words in his head.

It is not the first time a breakdown like this has happened, and it will not be the last, but it is the first time that Harvey, tears starting to dry on both his face and Bruce’s nightshirt, kisses him.

It’s nothing like any movie or book would have you think it would be. It doesn’t feel like fireworks or explosives, but it does feel like something just the slightest bit magic, it’s a little awkward and even though this is not the first time either of them have kissed someone, it still feels special, monumentous. And there is still teeth clashing together painfully as they try to figure out how they fit against each other.

They only kiss the once, and afterwards Harvey buries his head in Bruce’s hair and just holds him tight, as if holding Bruce tight enough will somehow get rid of everything else in the world.

Something pleasant burns in his chest and though they don’t talk anymore that night, Bruce hopes desperately that he will not have to lose this after tonight.

(There is something achingly vulnerable and fragile in the way that Harvey holds him and Bruce thinks that maybe both of them are making this more suspenseful and complicated than it needs to be.)

They wake up in the morning, tangled up in each other and warm. And Harvey whispers to him, “I might be a little bit in love with you, Bruce Wayne, and that’s terrifying.”

And Bruce thinks about the years and _years_ of wanting to just be close to Harvey, to soak in the smiles and laughter and be there to comfort during the tears despite the fact that Bruce Wayne is not the best at comforting anyone. He thinks of two lonely thirteen year olds who only had each other and the lightning under his skin, and he buries himself into Harvey’s chest and thinks, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fall out of love with you.’

He whispers “I love you” against Harvey’s chest instead. The sun rises, the world still spins, and Bruce thinks that maybe everything will be okay.

* * *

The first time Bruce hears someone saying something bad about Harvey he is 13 and angry, and it’s the first time he sees Harvey shrink for someone that isn’t his father.

Bruce sees red, but if he’s learned nothing else over the years, he’s learned how to wait before striking, so he breathes steadily and walks with Harvey to the library.

Later, he leaves a note in the boy’s locker, tells him to meet off campus.

That night he tells the boy exactly how he feels about people talking shit about Harvey for no reason, and just how he feels about people trying to ruin everything for Harvey just because the other boy was a scholarship kid and the kids at their school were both upper class and cruel.

And if the boy avoids Harvey and Bruce for the rest of the year—and stops making comments after one to many times (and one too many confrontations)—and if Bruce’s knuckles have a tendency to be raw and bruised, and the amount of cruel hearted kids saying things reduces, well, no one says anything.

Back then, he remembers thinking that Harvey must have known, must have figured it out at some point. Because Harvey Dent was many things, and stupid was never one of them.

But he never says anything, never brings it up, only smiles at Bruce and helps patch him up, tells him that Alfred will hate it if he keeps fighting.

Bruce nods along, smiles, jokes even, and knows with absolute certainty that it will happen again, because once upon a time he kept his head down against injustices to keep Alfred happy and less stressed, but now he’s fighting for Harvey. And Bruce thinks that maybe Alfred will forgive him for that, will maybe even be proud of him for making a friend, for wanting to protect his friend.

Perhaps it’s naive, but in their room Bruce focuses on Harvey’s golden smile and the feeling of Harvey's skin against his and doesn’t think about the mottled skin on his hands or the red speckles staining his shirt.

* * *

Sometimes Bruce is good at being okay, sometimes, a lot of the time since meeting Harvey, things are better and Bruce doesn’t feel like he’s about to explode with emotion anymore, and he doesn’t feel like he’s a robot either. Not emotionless and empty and not feeling so much it hurts. A type of delicate balance that doesn’t always hold.

He’d always been a painfully empathetic child.

He’s learned to manage the burnout, the empty that the emotions bring after too long and too much going through his head, the tired ache in his head and his chest.

Sometimes though, he sinks back into the empty, and forgets to, or can’t, muster up the energy to feel again.

He goes through the day on autopilot, feels like an outsider in his own body.

He blinks, finds Harvey sitting across the table from him, coffee mugs full of tea in front of both of them.

He lifts the cup automatically, sips at it, and tries to shake the fog from his head, emotions are hard for him right now, all the time, he knows that.

He burns himself out by feeling so much and not handling it well, not taking good enough care of himself. He needs to take better care of himself, he knows.

(His mother used to hug him when he felt like this, wrapped him up in her embrace and her gentle singing, told him that it wasn’t bad to care as much as he did, but that if he didn’t rest, take care of himself, take a break, then he would run himself into the ground.)

Harvey watches him patiently and Bruce feels a little fragile, and the tea is something warm in his mouth, in his stomach, grounding.

Bruce swirls his tea gently around in his mug, “Can we not talk about it?”

Harvey gives him a cautious look over, “If that’s what you want. As long as you’re okay?”

It’s a question, and Bruce nods, feeling shaky and really he just needs something solid to ground him right now, something warm.

He licks his lips, opens his mouth to speak and then closes it.

Harvey watches him, eyes careful and half-lidded, waiting for Bruce to say something, do something, get himself under control enough to talk.

“Can we just,” His voice still comes out scratchy and he winces, sipping his tea before continuing, “Can we watch a movie?”

Harvey gives him a small smile, “Yeah, sure.”

Bruce stands, grip on his mug firm and Harvey goes to grab a movie from the cabinet.

Bruce’s eyelids are heavy, pulling down insistently even as he forces them open, half walking and half stumbling to the couch.

Bruce exhales gently, and between one breath and the next, Harvey has the movie in and has grabbed his favourite blanket from what was once the designated blanket drawer and is now an odd assortment of clean blankets and electrical parts. Not practical in the least.

His fingers flex around his mug and Harvey drapes the blanket over Bruce, settling himself near Bruce.

Bruce takes a sip of his tea and avoids Harvey’s eyes. He takes another breath, holds it, releases, and sets his mug down. Brain more tired than anything else, he’s learnt the difference between these burnouts and when panic starts to choke him.

Doesn’t make it any less exhausting.

He gets comfortable and then lifts the blanket up in a silent offer. Harvey gives him a tiny smile—one that reminds Bruce of electricity under the skin, warm arms and gentle hands and the sun in spring—and slips next to him under the blanket.

They watch the movie like that, cuddled against each other. They fall asleep like that too, long before the movie finishes and Bruce’s tea has gone cold.

* * *

At some point, one of them slips up, and Bruce will never be sure of who it was, but somehow the dean knows and _Harvey is a Scholarship student_ and that becomes so horrifyingly clear far too quickly.

They knew what would happen if someone ever found out, society has never been kind to people like them, high society even crueler and Harvey is so bright and so brilliant that it isn’t even much of a decision the day that the dean calls Bruce up to his office.

Harvey Dent continues to be a top student in most of his classes and Bruce Wayne, the air-headed, high-class, twenty-something billionaire orphan drops out of school.

Harvey is thriving and Bruce knows how much he wants to be able to pass his bar, to be a lawyer, has seen that determination with his own eyes and it’s worth so much more than Bruce’s flighting interest in something he might not even end up doing because he still has the company.

(He just wishes that giving Harvey the best option didn’t have to mean _losing_ him.)

Harvey doesn’t quite meet his eyes anymore, not since the breakup, not since Bruce dropped out without telling him why, the angry voicemail that Bruce got when Harvey got back to the dorm to see it emptied of everything that was Bruce’s and the short apology about leaving without letting Harvey know.

It’s the end of something. It’s tangible in a way that hurts and he spends the first day afterwards locked in his room and bundled in blankets.

(Harvey will never know the truth, because Bruce doesn’t want him to, doesn’t want that tainting Harvey’s own achievements. It doesn’t matter anymore. This strange acquaintance-friendship is the best thing they can do nowadays, since Bruce has become more withdrawn, trying to clean up Gotham’s streets and failing and Harvey has had all of his time consumed by law school.)

When Bruce leaves to start seriously training, he calls Harvey and says goodbye and doesn’t think about the way Harvey’s hugs felt, when they were the types of things reserved for two in the morning or when the world felt like nothing was right.

He doesn’t see or hear from Harvey Dent for a long time after that.

* * *

When they’re 15 Harvey is swinging between emotions faster than Bruce can keep track of and getting so low sometimes that it’s terrifying, or being so high that he doesn’t think about what he’s doing or saying or how it will affect other people, and it leaves them at odds with each other sometimes.

Harvey can be angry and cutting or sad and so low he doesn’t care what happens to him or floating on the clouds with how elated he is and it’s exhausting sometimes. They are teenagers and Harvey is terrified he’s becoming his father and it takes Bruce staying up all night pouring over medical and mental conditions to reassure Harvey that he’s okay.

(It takes Bruce hugging a crying Harvey like his life depends on it and whispering reassurances about how much Harvey is different from the person who fathered him, telling him how brilliant he is, how kind, how wonderful he is, to reassure Harvey that he’s not going to end up bitter and angry and burnt out and manipulating those with less power than himself.)

They know how to handle it now, where before they were just doing what they thought worked best to help Harvey and to keep themselves from falling apart, now they know how to handle it.

Bruce knows how to comfort Harvey without setting him off, how to help Harvey think through things and stay level-headed. And Harvey is still a little emotionally unstable sometimes, just like Bruce will always get burnt out sometimes, no matter how well he’s learned to handle his emotions, but they work through it.

They get through it.

And when Harvey gets so low that he thinks of doing things he’ll regret he talks to Bruce and they do something distracting, and the times when all Harvey wants to do is lie in bed, they’ll cuddle and watch a movie and then go outside to look at the sky.

It works, it helps, and when Bruce wakes up in the morning feeling so drained of energy even moving is too much, Harvey makes cocoa and just lays next to him in bed, reading out loud from the first book he picked up from the pile next to the bed.

It’s comforting and easy and they’re still figuring everything out as they go along, and maybe they both still slip sometimes, Bruce too angry or Harvey feeling too erratic, but things are better now, learning how to keep each other from drowning is comforting.

* * *

In some ways, Bruce misses Harvey like he misses a limb, and other days he doesn’t think about him simply because it still hurts.

It’s not ideal.

(The day the dean gave Bruce his options he had a breakdown in the middle of his room for a solid hour before packing everything up and leaving and then proceeded to spend the next 3 days dangerously close to needing his stomach pumped and making generally horrible decisions.)

Things never go back to how they used to be between them, for the simple reason that they had always seemed to revolve around each other, a set of binary stars.

Harvey had always enraptured him, always filled Bruce with the sense of wanting, the buzz under his skin praying, _please look at me like that again, smile at me, do that again._

They were glued nearly at the hip for so long that to have been without Harvey this long felt unnatural, that he knew Harvey might not want to see him again felt even more so.

Bruce Wayne was something cracked and held together by the intensity of falling in love for the first time and the affection, platonic or otherwise, he was craving with every inch of himself, he was starving for it and Harvey had filled that void where Alfred could not.

(For the simple reason that Harvey loved all of him, and Bruce would never risk giving Alfred the chance to decide whether he did or not)

No one had ever told him that trying to fall out of love would hurt this much, though he didn’t suppose anyone really needed to be told that.

(His parents, and later Alfred, had always told him that firsts were important; impressions, friends, memories, and so it seemed, crushes.)

He doesn’t think he’ll love anyone in quite the same way he loved Harvey, all loose limbed, tangled together, enraptured love.

It makes him angry and mortified and it hurts.

Alfred makes him cocoa, takes away the bottles and gives him sad looks, disappointed that Bruce has dropped out, unaware of the reason, unaware of what Bruce is mourning.

(He let’s it stay that way, because he doesn’t think he could survive losing Alfred too. Wouldn’t be able to bear it.)

* * *

Bruce’s return to Gotham feels like a fever dream, unreal and going to end at any second. He sits in the manor and feels like too loud of a noise or too sudden a movement will bring it all crashing down around him.

It’s strange, to be in the manor once again, to be in this too large house that’s haunted with everything Bruce as a child had refused to acknowledge and deal with.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself at first, finds himself diving headfirst into fighting crime.

He doesn’t tell Alfred. Alfred has never liked it when Bruce gets into fights, and Bruce feels that the man will maybe detest Bruce’s new habits far more than he used to view the way Bruce would get into trouble when he was young and angry.

It’s the first few nights of his new routine of going out at night and throwing himself into stopping whatever crime he could find that he realizes that even with all of his preparation and training, he feels more like an angry child than a protector.

It bothers him, an uneasiness that worms it’s way under his skin and it makes him feel useless no matter what he tries.

One night he gets too caught up in his head, not focused enough on the fight and it costs him in the form of what he thinks are bruised ribs, a fucked up ankle and a shoulder that feels dislocated and hurts to move let alone put pressure on.

When he slips back into the Manor, Alfred is waiting in the kitchen with his head in his hands and Bruce feels a stab in his chest that has nothing to do with any of his injuries.

Hiding his injuries from Alfred was never going to last long, and he knew it but he had been hoping to avoid this situation, to avoid the hopeless slump he can see in Alfred’s shoulders.

He’s always been a disappointment and a burden to Alfred, and Bruce isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to stop disappointing Alfred in some way, keep himself from failing at one thing or another.

Alfred looks weary in the kitchen lights, older than Bruce has seen him in a long time and Bruce shifts his weight.

Alfred glances up at the sound of shifting fabric, drawing himself up, eyes cataloging every visible injury and the Kevlar vest and ill made protections and something in Alfred’s eyes crack before he clears his throat.

“You would think after so long, my dear boy, you would realize that leaving through the exit near my room makes it easier to hear you sneak out of the house.”

Bruce doesn’t answer, and Alfred sighs, “Well don’t just stand there Master Bruce, your injuries aren’t going to take care of themselves.”

Bruce makes his way to the chair, wincing slightly as he puts too much weight on the fucked up ankle and Alfred sets the first aid-kit down next to him.

Alfred’s lips are thin and he tuts disapprovingly, “Shoulder?”

Bruce bites his cheek and tastes blood.

Alfred sighs, “I will take you to the hospital if you don’t tell me Master Bruce.”

Bruce grunts, “Might be dislocated, and the ankle is twisted at the very least.”

Alfred works silently, and Bruce can feel the disapproval weighing heavily in the air. It’s quiet and Alfred’s hands are steady as he works.

Alfred is wrapping his ankle, all other major concerns taken care of, when he finally speaks outside of tutting at Bruce over being reckless.

“I don’t like this.” He says firmly and Alfred looks tired.

(It’s the same sort of tiredness that comes from getting a call just as you were about to fall asleep and hearing that your employers and friends are dead and have placed their only child into your care, it’s the tired born of worry and fear, the tired that comes from loving a child determined to self-destruct.)

Bruce looks Alfred in the eyes, “I have to do this, Alfred, no one else will so I _have_ to.”

(Bruce Wayne at 23 is just as much of a mess as he was at 19 and 20 and he is self destructing slowly but surely. He is hurt and protective rage and a child’s desperate dream all wrapped up in the neat bow of a lack of care for his own well being, and he is breaking Alfred’s heart a little more every day.)

And Alfred doesn’t argue even though his face does the complicated twist it does only when he disagrees with something. Instead he sets the last of the med supplies in his hands on the table and holds Bruce’s face gently in his hands as if Bruce is something precious, he scans Bruce’s face for a second before he looks Bruce in the eyes and he sighs, “I know you do, I won’t stop you dear boy, but please, come to me for help. I don’t like this, I might never like this because I am scared for you, but I do care for you very deeply and I will always help you. Do you understand?”

Bruce nods and doesn’t say anything because the knot in his throat is too thick and his eyesight is blurring as he revels in this moment of love and care and he aches, suddenly, for the times when he was younger and smaller and used to tuck himself against Alfred and his parent’s legs, comforted by the solid weight against his sides.

Alfred sighs and takes a step back and Bruce feels the loss of contact like an arrow to the heart, even as he himself stands and turns his back to the man who had raised him for more of his life than his own father.

“Goodnight, Master Bruce.” Alfred says, steady and reserved.

Bruce pauses in the door, 23 and tired and on a track to self-destruction that’s far more visible than it’s been before, “Goodnight Alfred.”

(2 days later, he makes the choice to live, laying on the ground, alone and watching the thing he was terrified of for so long in his childhood fly around the room.

He asks Alfred, hesitantly, to help him make the new suit not 3 hours after Alfred has found and patched him up once more, terror stark in the older man’s eyes at just how close the call was and Bruce can feel all of the ways he has failed this man as sharp as any knife.

He becomes Batman and it feels like a new beginning, Batman is something righteous yes, but he is a protector, not a spiral of self-destruction.

Batman is Bruce Wayne choosing to live.)

* * *

He’s 23 and only just starting to figure out everything and he’s still a mess, still pathetically needy and craving affection like he’s starved of it.

It’s after he goes on patrol for the night, comes home with no concerning injuries and comes to the realization that he’s so lonely it hurts.

Alfred tries so hard, sacrifices so much, but being in a house with no one but the man who raised you and knowing that no matter how much he loves you he might never love all of you leaves Bruce cracked through.

He calls Harvey, out of some irrational thought process that culminates in him holding the ringing phone to his ear as he holds his breath and waits almost desperately for an answer.

When Harvey answers his phone he sounds exhausted, “Bruce, why are you calling me at 3 am?”

Bruce purses his lips, thumbpad running along his nails anxiously, “I’m not entirely sure I can give you an answer.”

There’s a pause, and when Harvey speaks again he sounds a little bit more awake, “Okay, uhm, how’ve you been Bruce?”

Bruce breathes gently, wishes he was speaking to Harvey in person, wishing they had been more careful, wishing he hadn’t been such a stupid child that day in the dean’s office, wishes for a hundred other things.

He sighs, “I’ve been okay I suppose, I’m glad to be home.” He bites the inside of his cheek, debates giving out pleasantries and apologizing and hanging up the phone right now.

He breathes, presses his thumb against the side of his index finger, and makes his decision, “How have you been Harvey? I’ve heard you made quite the name for yourself.”

Harvey snorts, “Yeah, I suppose I have, haven’t I?” he laughs, “Finally got to be more than the fucking scholarship kid right?”

Bruce hums, “You were never just the scholarship kid Harvey, you were always one of the most brilliant people I’ve known.”

Harvey doesn’t answer, and Bruce sighs, feeling weary, “I’m proud of you Harv.”

It’s quiet for a minute and Bruce hardly dares to move. Harvey curses softly, no malice in his voice, only exhaustion, “Bruce I can’t—you left, you meant the world to me and _you left_. And I kept wondering if it was my fault, something I did, if my—” Harvey’s breath stutters, “my dad was the reason, I spent so fucking long wondering and feeling like a child throwing a tantrum and you just vanished. I couldn’t talk to you about it, couldn’t try to fix it, couldn’t try to figure out whether or not I could fix it and it drove me half mad, Bruce.”

Bruce’s nails are digging into his palm, and he wants nothing more than to shake himself, but he can’t, and nothing will go back to how it was, no amount of apologizing or drinking or nostalgia will make things between himself and Harvey go back to normal.

There is a power, Bruce thinks to himself, in a first heartbreak. It can ruin things inside of you that subsequent heartbreaks might not. But maybe that was just him, maybe it wasn’t true at all. Bruce hadn’t had his heart broken by Talia after all.

(Not yet at least.)

He taps his index and middle fingers against his leg in bursts of two and releases a shaky breath, “Sorry won’t fix this, so I won’t try, but know that you did mean everything to me Harv, and none of this was your fault, it’s on me. Not you, not your poor excuse of a father. Me.”

Harvey’s voice is wet, “I don’t think either of us are feeling to great about everything, and we—” he sighs, and Bruce can picture him rubbing at his sternum, something he did whenever he was upset or stressed, “I don’t think either of us would ever be able to go through something like that again, be together again and…..well, neither of us can even afford to be out, and I think that might kill us a little bit Brucie.”

Bruce knows that, had thought about it so many times, lying down in bed with Harvey in a Princeton dorm room and looking at the ceiling. Knowing that, with the way the world was and the expectations on the two of them, they might never be able to be together outside of their stolen little moments.

(Harvey had once called them ‘ _A tragedy in the making_ ’. Bruce had laughed with him then, but the uneasy feeling the words had caused to bubble up in his stomach had stuck with him.)

“I know, that doesn’t make me any less proud of you Harvey, and it doesn’t make me any less your friend.”

Harvey chuckles, “Thanks Bruce, and I’m okay with friends, I can do that. I’m gonna be upset with you sometimes but, I can do that.”

“That’s fair, thank you for letting me have that chance.”

Harvey laughs, and it’s a genuine thing despite the bitter hints that creep in around the edges, “I’ve always been weak to you Bruce. You were always more than I could ever hope to have.”

They hang up shortly afterward, say their goodbyes and Bruce feels a little bit less heavy.

But he can’t help but think that Harvey was wrong. Harvey had always deserved better than Bruce could be for him, deserved more than Bruce could give him.

(Bruce can’t seem to stop ruining the people he loves.)

* * *

They meet up for dinner. Casual, just trying to figure out their places in each other’s lives now.

And it’s not hard to talk to Harvey, not really, but it’s easy to see that it’s nowhere near the easy way it used to be. They’re not strangers to each other, more something slightly adjacent. They don’t understand each other as well as they used to.

It’s painful in a different way.

Harvey is too tense the entire time and Bruce feels wound taught, and it feels like there are a hundred tiny landmines waiting for them to stumble on.

The guilt eats away at his chest and Harvey’s cautious grin is a punch in the throat.

When Bruce gets home Alfred looks at him and Bruce feels flayed open.

Alfred ushers him into the kitchen and makes him cocoa and it’s too much and not enough and when Alfred asks him what’s wrong he lies without lying.

“I met up with an old friend, I—I hadn’t really _realized_ just how much everything had changed.

And Bruce can guess what Alfred is thinking and it isn’t right. Because even if he had stayed, if he hadn’t started training or became Batman, there was no way he was ever going to be able to keep Harvey, no way he would ever get to be that happy.

It hurts, and it makes something in him ache that he can’t explain this to Alfred.

He allows himself, for half a second, to dream that maybe he’d been born into a position or a time where he could afford to not be so very careful, where he could tell Alfred and not have to fear what might surely be the rejection in Alfred’s eyes if he ever found out.

But he was born in this time, in this place, and he can’t change that.

His heart is a little cracked and the fear that Alfred’s love for him isn’t infallible will always hover on the edges of his mind and the regrets he has over Harvey will maybe always haunt him. But he is Bruce Wayne and he is Batman, and he carries on.

* * *

There is something terrifying about having anyone over, or going out to see anyone. He always remains so certain and petrified that one of these times, after a visit with Harvey or someone else, that Alfred will pull him to the side and see right through him and it makes Bruce sick to his stomach sometimes.

Having a child in the house, having _Dick_ in the house makes it worse, makes him worry that Alfred will somehow find out and then confront him, ask him if the rumours, those horrible _disgusting_ rumours that make Bruce blind with rage and nauseous at the mere thought of them, were true.

Bruce could take a lot. There are, he thinks, maybe two things in the world he would not be able to survive.

One, is losing Dick, losing a child, he would crack apart he thinks, crumble until there was nothing left to put together.

The second is the thought of Alfred being disgusted with him in such a deep-seated way or claiming him unworthy of any love. There isn’t much else to it, he would spiral, he would destroy himself and let himself be destroyed and there would be no stopping it, not if that happened.

These are the facts as he knows it, the two things he would not be able to survive. And it terrifies him.

* * *

Harvey Dent is Two-Face

Bruce wants to throw something, _break_ something, and then he wants to cry. He wants to apologize because this is his fault and he had never meant for this to happen but now it is and there’s nothing he can do to stop it because he was a dumb child and an even bigger idiot now to not have seen how close to the edge Harvey was and now Harvey is running around as Two-Face and killing people and—

A slightly hysterical thought creeps into his head, ‘Someone will have to debar Harvey now won’t they?’

It should be such a small thing, but it feels like the unraveling of an entire life, the foundation of everything coming apart as he touches it and it shatters something inside of him in a way that he should be used to by now, after so long.

(Gotham is a cruel mistress after all, and he has spent his entire life serving her.)

Two-Face, who was once Harvey Dent, (who Bruce desperately hopes still _is_ Harvey Dent in some recognizable way), who was once Bruce Wayne’s first love, is put in the back of a police car and driven away.

Dick tugs at his cape a little and Bruce breathes, sucking in the air like a dying man and looks down at his son.

Dick is biting his lip, a habit that Bruce needs to get him to stop if only to avoid him biting through his lip one of these days, looking worried.

“I’m sorry B, I know he was your friend.”

Bruce breathes very carefully, deliberately, and keeps his face as blank as he can manage.

He runs a careful hand through Dick’s hair before squeezing his shoulder gently, “He was.” he acknowledges and pretends like the words aren’t burning him from the inside out.

They hadn’t been anything more than friends in a very long time.

Dick frowns and looks like he wants to say something, even opens his mouth to start talking, but bites on his lip again instead.

Bruce brushes his thumb across Dick’s cheek quickly, “Don’t bite.”

Dick wrinkles his nose and bats Bruce’s hand away, leaning against Bruce’s leg (and it pains Bruce to see him, so little and out here with the possibility to get hurt but Bruce is doing everything to protect him and it will have to be enough,) and bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“We should get back,” He says, staring up at Bruce, “Penny-One can make hot cocoa and help you feel better.”

Bruce smiles and nods and thinks to himself that this is something not even Alfred will be able to help him with.

* * *

Harvey, when they were younger, had always prefered the stories where things were black and white and easy to see, Bruce had too.

As they got older, Harvey started to look at things through every lense, find every loophole. He drifted to stories that were all about _choices_ and decisions and the consequences of making them.

Bruce prefered the stories that brought people to justice, the ones about right and wrong and the desperation of people with nothing left to lose. Those were always the most dangerous types of people.

Harvey Dent was a man who thought he no longer had anything left to lose and Bruce Wayne had always known the dangers of those types of men.

People are made up of choices, and Bruce had made one years ago in a dean’s office, scared and worried and so in love he left to give Harvey everything he wanted. (Harvey was an honour roll student, they never would have gotten rid of him, not with any reason that would hold up, but Bruce was young and scared and he did what he thought was right. The could have beens only plagued him after fight’s with Two-Face now, the nights where he thought that maybe—if he had stayed—things would be better, but they would never know, because in this version of the world Bruce hadn’t stayed.)

Harvey Dent had made one too, full of anger and the need to hurt.

And now Two-Face sits in the back of a police car and Bruce stands still, watching him be driven away and wondering if he would ever be able to move on from the boy who had sat beside him all those years ago, when Bruce was lonely and angry and filled up with too much emotion to hold.

(He wonders when he’ll be able to openly mourn the boy who was his first for a lot of things, who held him and kissed him and made him feel like things were alright. Who made him feel giddy with love and delight.

He wonders when having loved Harvey will no longer have been a sin.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry if I didn't portray something well, and yell at me if I didn't handle Harvey and Bruce's different problems well, I researched, but I am also a teenager and bound to make mistakes, please correct me so I can fix it.
> 
> The emotional burnout stuff is based on what happens to me though.
> 
> [writing tumblr](https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com) and [main tumblr](https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com)


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